City Council: Comcast Riverside Avenue Utility Relocation - 2026-10-21

AI-generated summary. Written by gemini-3-flash-preview from the transcript below, which is the record. It may be incomplete or wrong; it does not report votes. Every item links to the moment it began.

The Council reviewed a petition to relocate Comcast utility infrastructure from 65 Riverside Avenue to the public right-of-way to prevent service loss for local businesses during the building's demolition. The body coordinated with city departments to ensure the developer and utility company maintain service continuity through a transition plan.

3:01 Comcast Grant of Location Petition — Referred to the next regular meeting a petition to install approximately 273 feet of underground conduit on Riverside Avenue to prevent service disruptions for 23 commercial customers during the demolition of 65 Riverside Avenue.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Special meeting, Medford City Council, October 21st, 2026 is called to order. Clerk Siegel, please call the roll.

[City Clerk Laurel Siegel]: I'm having audio issues on my computer so I apologize for the lag on me.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I don't think he's on. He's not on, but I don't think Laurel can hear us. Okay.

[City Clerk Laurel Siegel]: I'm sorry. I've been troubleshooting on my computer. This for some reason, I'm getting a repeat of everything. Okay. So Councilor Tseng is not present vice president was our, I apologize for technical difficulties. That's okay. I thought that you were probably working on that. I am present. Okay. And present bears.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: present and Laurel, it's probably YouTube is on and streaming and giving you a feed from YouTube. You might need to.

[3J1SvB_FcUE_SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, exactly. I just figured I thank you. I just figured that out and eliminate it. I apologize for the confusion.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: No worries. All right. Six present one absent. The meeting is called to order partitions, presentations and similar papers to six one eight five. We have a petition for a grant of location from Comcast sixty five Riverside. This, basically, we are hearing from there is. Some issue with the demolition of the 65 Riverside of building and the service. At that location, you know, they have been. Working with the engineering department and commissioner given and engineer on this.

And I believe we're also supposed to be joined by building commissioner 40 or at least he told me he'd be joining us.

[City Engineer Owen Wartella]: So I will he just asked for the link and I just sent it to him again.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Great. All right. Thank you. So we are not having the public hearing on this tonight because we just got the petition on Friday but I think it's useful for us to all hear an update. Generally I would say the summary is there's a concern about loss of service for a number of businesses and customers in Medford Square due to the demolition of 65 Riverside Ave and there's a long-term change here that will be needed which is what the grant of location is about but also came to our attention wanting to try to minimize any disruption of service and I think commissioner 40 is going to come and talk to us a bit more about the demolition process and making sure that no services are disrupted through it but before that I do just want to recognize the petitioner I believe we have Dave Flewelling from Comcast here if you want to give a brief overview of what you have put forward before us tonight and then we can kind of go through the city's role here.

[Dave Flewelling]: Good evening, Dave Llewellyn, Comcast, 9 Forbes Road, Woburn, Massachusetts. I would like to speak in favor of the Comcast petition to install a conduit system on Riverside Ave for the purpose of providing service to the businesses that would potentially lose service as part of the demolition of 65 Riverside Ave. There's roughly 23 commercial customers that could lose this service. Part of the demolition, the existing Comcast infrastructure that's currently in the basement could be jeopardized during this demolition and access could be an issue getting into the basement to restore that service. I know that the basement does fill with water. I'm not sure if there's any asbestos in the building or not, but I do know there is some mold down there. So we're looking to permanently relocate this out into the right away.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right, thank you for the presentation. I'm wondering, Owen or Bill, I don't know, I think there's two separate issues here. There's how do we address this demolition question and then there's the grant of location for moving the service into the street. Owen, do you want to start with the demolition or with the grant of location?

[City Engineer Owen Wartella]: We can start with the grant of location that would be me so Dave gave us the revised petition around three o'clock today. I Sent over my recommendation for the grant of location to Laurel a few minutes after that so Basically, you know, it's the standard grant of location and Language that it's limited to approximately 273 feet of 4 inch plastic underground conduit. A couple of manhole structures and a small vault in the existing. Riverside avenues transit way right of ways. As depicted on the revised plan, and the 2nd condition is that we recommend that the contractor notified dig safe and must obtain a trench permit and no other utility structures or conduit, duck banks, pipes, or any other purposes are adversely impacted. They.

just need to make sure that all drain lines utilities are marked prior to excavation. And then at least 72 hours prior to the start of the project, Comcast must coordinate a butter communications with the director of communications and submit any required information that may be requested to effectively inform the public. Any proposed electrical conduit locations must maintain three feet away from all public utilities and an approved as built plan and CAD files in State Plains must be on file in the Engineering Division at the completion of the project.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right. Okay. Well, thanks for summarizing that. Do you have any, you know, we're going to take this up, I think, for the regular hearing since we'll have time to do it. Butters notice is next Tuesday. Sounds great. So I think that's fine. But do you have, guys, Tim or Owen, do you have any concerns on our approval of the grant of location next Tuesday if we adopt your recommendations?

[City Engineer Owen Wartella]: I don't at the moment. All right. For the grant application. Correct.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes, exactly. So I want to go now to Commissioner 40. I saw your hand up. Interim building Commissioner 40. Thanks for being here. Could you talk about the demolition? And ensuring that there's a maintenance of this service during the demolition. Obviously, I think there's been some coordination issues between the property owner and Comcast in terms of this service. And, you know, kind of came to the city in a bit of a, I would say a bit of a rush.

I think we just need to make sure and understand from your perspective on the demolition and how the city oversees demolition. How services will be maintained while these items move through the city process.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: Well, first of all, Mr. chair, you want to give me camera permission so you can see my handsome face. Allow me to unmute one second.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I think I'm going to see if I have the power to do that here.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: I know that. Yeah, you're not ready. You're not ready for my handsome face, but.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: Here we go. You should be able to turn on now. I feel like I now I feel like I'm in the meeting. Nice to see you. It's only been about 3 years, but great. So. I don't have any. say over means and methods. So let's just say that there's a gas meter inside the building that can't be, you know, that can't be disconnected because they provide service to the other buildings. I might, as a building commissioner, I might approve a impact proof enclosure that might protect that gas meter. But I wouldn't tell them how to do it or where to do it. I certainly wouldn't design it for them. Um, so, um, you know, I would say anything outside of the building demolition is going to be on. The, um, it's going to be on the means and methods of. The contractor, firstly, and secondly, I wouldn't really have any jurisdiction over. How the building is demo with the exception of public safety. So, if there were, if there were construction on the sidewalk, and there was staging, I might have some jurisdiction on that. But, but because this is a complete demolition. I think that they, I'm not sure if they have an engineer of record on on site with this demolition permit or not. Um, but I would take the recommendations of the structural engineer at that point, if there were something that, um, that I would be involved with as the building commissioner, um, you know, for just for argument's sake, I have no objection as to how the city wants to handle their, uh, utilities and so forth. Um, I understand that they have to keep Comcast live. Is that correct?

Yep. And that's communication with the other buildings, correct? Um, I have 2 emails here on my server that looks like it, it got resolved. So I'm not exactly sure. Um, what we're discussing now, um.

[Dave Flewelling]: I'm not sure what, what the, what the, what the question is. I mean, we, we still have the existing, you know, infrastructure in the basement and access is the issue. So we, we have not disconnected anything currently it's still up and running.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah, I guess commissioner 40, when you say it's been resolved, what, what do you mean by that?

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: Um, there was an email exchange. Um, it appears that, um, there was a question about, There was a question about if they needed permission to keep it live or something like that. Hold on one second here. Let's see. I'm sorry, I thought I just had it. Let me just go to the top here. Uh, let's see, so, um. Sorry about that. I should have been prepared.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: Yeah, Carol, right? No, no, I'm sorry. Carol rash was the person who has been emailing back and forth with Tim. Okay. Yeah. And then Tim had mentioned that anything that comes into play, I should be involved in the meeting. Well, I'm feeling neutral in this. So again, I would just tell you that I have no stake in the game because I'm not the one that's taking the building down. And obviously, as long as it meets all the requirements of public safety, any objection to the way that the contractor wants to keep it on or remove it or re-hook it up or whatever, so.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: then I'll go to Tim. It sounds like Tim, if you're on an email chain with the property owner, if you could explain.

[Tim McGivern]: I was just explaining the expectation that there would be utility coordination done for the building demolition. That would be my expectation. So any utilities that are giving service to another part of the city, which is what you have here, that the building demolition can't just interrupt that service without proper coordination. So my email was reminding them that that is the situation. So I know that Hamilton, who's the company doing the demo, is working with Comcast to figure that out because that's what would be needed. Ideally, this stuff is figured out before you start demoing your building and you maybe do some enabling, which would mean moving all the utilities out of the way so you can demo your building safely. So, that was the gist of the conversation and, you know, they believe that there's an issue between Comcast and Hamilton, but they're going to have to work that out on their own as far as, you know, whose fault it is that they didn't properly do their utility coordination.

Anyway, so that is the situation, how I see it and how I communicated to the Hamilton project team. And what was their response? that they intend to coordinate the utilities with Comcast. Okay, all right.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: So Mr. Flewelling, we're gonna take up this grant of location at our next regular meeting for the permanent moving of the services, but it sounds like now property owner and Comcast are in communication to ensure that service is not disrupted. But before I go back to you, Mr. Flewelling, I will go to Councilor Scarpelli.

[Councilor George Scarpelli]: Uh, thank you, Mr. President. And I know that I brought this issue forward because of the fear of service being disrupted to businesses and residents in our community. I just wanna make sure that as we leave this meeting, we vote on anything, that we have assurances both by Hamilton and Comcast that we're not gonna have any issues with our residents because of the situation. To be honest, I don't care whose fault it is, Hamilton's or Comcast. That's not my incentive, my motivation here. if there's something in place that the city can do right now to make sure that if they continue with the demolition and that demolition then affects our residents and what their provider can uphold with their businesses and their communication, that's my number one priority, Mr. President. So I don't, I'm hearing that we're moving things forward for next meeting, okay, but I still haven't heard anything. It's maybe someone can help Mr. President share some insight with me that what are we doing as a city to make sure that we're ceasing desisting any control that we have to, to not affect our residents and any inconvenience to their businesses and so on. So thank you, Mr. President.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yeah. So I'll go. I'll try to summarize and I'll Tim, if you could go and then Bill, but it sounds like. We have, you know, put Hamilton on notice that they can't disrupt the services until. Um, you know, as part of their demolition, so it sounds like that's where we're at Tim from your communication with the property owner.

[Tim McGivern]: Yeah, well, the DPW is in control of the right of way aspect of this. But I wanted to make sure the bill was involved because the building is being demoed as part of a building demolition permit on the private property. But if under a scenario where Hamilton did something stupid and interrupted service, internet service for whatever it is, 23 businesses or buildings, Well, then they didn't do the utility coordination. They have some responsibility there because even though they have some disagreement with Comcast, it doesn't really matter. They have their big private company. They have responsibilities when they're doing things like building demolition. So all of those impacted parties would have basically a case against them for something, including Comcast. So, I mean, I agree with Councilor Scarpelli. I mean, the city doesn't have It's not an emergency for us in that sense. So it seems like they failed to communicate properly early on in the process. Now they're in a situation where they maybe have to coordinate quickly. And I think that's what Comcast is trying to do Comcast wants to get their infrastructure in so they can get out of the way. There's other issues, you know with that happening for example, right now there are barriers in Riverside Avenue, and Hamilton is obviously taken a portion of Riverside Avenue for the building demolition. We don't really think it looks safe to then have Comcast come in, modify that TMP, the traffic management plan, in order to safely occupy Riverside Avenue and do both of the jobs at the same time. That's a problem. So there's a lot of things that they have to work out to actually figure out how to do this. And I'm glad they're communicating now.

I don't have necessarily any sort of enforcement abilities if that's what we're asking as well. I just know that they have a responsibility when they're taking down a building to make sure that they're coordinating all of their utility turn offs and turn ons. So that's where we stand. and they've been put on notice. This particular company, Hamilton Company, has been involved with my office and Alicia's office and Owen's office with their parcels down in Medford Square, because obviously they would like to redevelop them. They're taking down the building, right? So anyway, that's what I have to say on it. I'm not sure if Bill's office has more enforcement powers as far as the building demo permit goes. He'll have to speak to that. Yeah, go to the commissioner.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: Yeah, so Mr. President, so I would say that when you're considering the grant of location, and this would be to open up the street. Am I correct? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I just would say, by the time they get to council with that request, they should have a transition plan already in effect so that they don't disrupt service. Or if they do, it's for a certain amount of time. In the meantime, I would tell you that it is their responsibility and I can communicate to them to protect. You know, that central junction that is feeding some of the other buildings and, you know, we run into this problem now and again with multiple buildings on the same lot. You know what I mean? Back in the old days, they didn't have separate utilities going into different buildings. We've had water lines and sewer lines going from 1 building to the next. This kind of stuff happens all the time and there is protocol in place. You know, if you're any kind of demolition contractor, you know how you've got to protect that area. And obviously, you know, that liability, that fault would be on the contractor.

Notwithstanding any authority I have to shut the job down, but I think they understand that, you know, they hit that and it's all over and, you know, everybody's going to be renting and raving. So I don't see a problem with this. I will communicate to the contractor that, We understand that there's a live junction in there that feeds other buildings. And obviously, there are measures for you to protect that and take care of it until grant of location. And obviously, you want to have a transitional plan together when you go to ask for that. So that would be my recommendation. And I can shut down demolition at any time if I'm alerted by staff that there's something that's otherwise unsafe or outside of the scope of what they're supposed to be doing over there. But I have confidence that they're not going to do that.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: All right, okay, that's helpful. If you could send that message along, feel free to copy me on it.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: I'll reply all to our last email conversation.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: And I'll quickly go to Mr. Flewelling. Now that you are in communication with the property owner, do you think a transition plan would be, you know, both either from them or from you or from both of you would be available when we meet next Tuesday to do the grant of location? I will start working on that in the morning. All right, great. And Commissioner, I think it'd be helpful in your message as well if someone from Hamilton could show up just to make sure that we're fully aware, you know, directly from them that they figured this out.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: Of course, yep. I will communicate that. Yep. Very good.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Thank you very much. All right. Do you have any other questions for members of the council? All right, seeing none, just a motion to refer this paper to our next regular meeting. So moved. The motion of council is our seconded by. Seconded. Seconded by Councilor Scarpelli. Clerk Siegel, please call the roll.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Yes. Assembly affirmative, none the negative, the motion passes. Thank you, Owen and Bill. And Tim, I know you're sticking around with us for the next one, but appreciate, and Mr. Flewelling as well, just, you know, want to make sure we don't have service disruption. And I know it's two private parties and, you know, the only piece of this that's really on us is the grant allocation and managing this permit for demolition, but helpful to make sure that our city end is covered.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: Mr. President, my apologies to the Council for not being familiar with everyone, but I'm Bill Forty, I'm the stand-in, and it's a pleasure to meet you all, and I don't know how much longer we'll be working together, but thank you very much.

[Interim Building Commissioner Bill Forte]: Yeah, you too. Thank you. All right. I appreciate it. Have a nice day. All right. Take care.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Should we have a motion to adjourn the special meeting and start? Thank you. Thank you.

[Councilor Zac Bears]: I'll motion to adjourn the special meeting and we'll pick up at the Public Works and Facilities Committee with Councilor Callahan chairing in a few minutes. By Councilor Callahan, seconded by?

[Councilor Zac Bears]: Seconded by Councilor Mullane. Clerk Siegel, please call the roll.

Zac Bears total time: 6.16 minutes total words: 1105	George Scarpelli total time: 1.47 minutes total words: 217